A
Disgusting Exercise
By Uri Avnery
24 March, 2006
Gush Shalom
The central theme of this article
is disgust. Therefore I apologize in advance for the frequent use of
this and similar words.
In the thesaurus I find quite
a number of synonyms: loathing, revulsion, dislike, nausea, distaste,
aversion, antipathy, abomination, repulsion, abhorrence, repugnance,
odium, detestation, and some more. They are all present in my feelings
about the action that took place in Jericho on Tuesday.
IT WAS abhorrent, first of
all, because it was an election propaganda gimmick. For a politician
to send the army in to collect votes is an abhorrent act. In this action,
three people were killed. Many more lives, Palestinian and Israeli,
were put at risk.
The horrible cynicism of
the decision was plain for all to see. Even the voters noticed it: in
a public opinion poll two days later, 47% said that the decision was
influenced by electoral considerations, only 49% thought otherwise.
This is not the first time
for Ehud Olmert to walk over dead bodies on his way to power. As mayor
of Jerusalem, he pushed for the opening of a tunnel in the area of the
Muslim shrines, causing (as expected) dozens of casualties. Binyamin
Netanyahu, his accomplice at the time, is made of similar material.
Netanyahu, at least, was
once a combat soldier, who risked his own life in action. Much more
distasteful is a politician who sends others to risk their lives but
takes great care not to risk his own. This inglorious band also numbers
George Bush and Dick Cheney, two serial war-mongers.
Olmert had a problem. His
party was slowly sinking in the polls. As time passed, some of the Kadima
fans started to notice that Olmert, after all, is no Sharon. Sharon's
glory derives mainly from his being a victorious general, who walked
around during the Yom Kippur war with a large bandage around his head
(to this very day it is not quite clear what purpose it served). Olmert
was in urgent need of a military action that would provide him with
the laurels of a tough military commander, and would also help him shake
off the nickname attached to him by the Likud: Smolmert. (Smol, in Hebrew,
means left.)
The trick paid off. In the
same poll, 20.7% of the voters said that the Jericho action persuaded
them to vote for Kadima, or, at least, reinforced their decision to
do so.
In general, one should beware
of a civilian politician who succeeds a leader crowned with military
laurels. It is enough to mention the classic case of Anthony Eden, the
heir of Winston Churchill, who initiated the Suez war of October 1956.
WHAT DOES that war remind
us about? The collusion.
The British wanted to topple
Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, because he had the temerity to expropriate the
property of the British shareholders of the Suez Canal Company. The
French wanted to bring him down because of his support for the Algerian
war of liberation. They conspired with David Ben-Gurion, who wanted
to destroy the newly re-equipped Egyptian army. The main middleman of
the collusion was Shimon Peres, now No. 2 on the Kadima list.
It worked like this: Israeli
paratroopers, commanded by Ariel Sharon (founder of Kadima), were dropped
near the Suez canal. Britain and France issued a fake ultimatum, calling
upon Egypt and Israel to withdraw their forces from the canal - a preposterous
demand, since the canal is deep in Egyptian territory. As agreed beforehand,
Israel refused, and then the British and French forces invaded the canal
area, leaving the Israeli army to take control of the entire Sinai peninsula.
The collusion was so primitive and obvious that it was uncovered at
once. End of Eden.
The Jericho affair is incredibly
similar: the British and the Americans pretended to fear for the safety
of their monitors, which were stationed in Jericho according to an agreement
which we shall touch upon later. They told Mahmoud Abbas that they might
withdraw them. At a time secretly agreed upon with the Israeli Prime
Minister, the British and American monitors went out and the Israeli
army went in. Preparations for the action had been going on for weeks.
One thing should be said
in favor of George Bush and Tony Blair (and his miserable Foreign Minister,
Jack Straw): they have returned the oldest profession in the world to
the oldest city in the world. The scarlet thread of Rahav the Harlot
(Joshua, 2) leads to this act of prostitution.
LIEUTENANT GENERAL Dan Halutz
can be proud of this victory. In the past, he became famous for saying
that all he feels is a slight bump on his wing when he drops a bomb
on a civilian neighborhood, even if women and children are also killed.
After that he sleeps well, he said. Now he has won real glory: with
the help of dozens of tanks, gunships and heavy bulldozers he has succeeded
in capturing six unarmed prisoners in the tranquil, non-violent little
town that lives off tourism.
In the course of the action,
Halutz' soldiers created a disgusting picture that has sullied the image
of the Israeli army in the eyes of the hundreds of millions who saw
it on their screens. They ordered the Palestinian policemen and prisoners
to take their clothes off, and then let them be photographed, again
and again - and again and again - in their underpants. There was no
need for that. The pretext, that they might have hidden explosive belts
on their body, was ridiculous under these circumstances. And even if
it had been necessary, it could surely have been done far from the cameras.
No doubt: the intention was to humiliate, to debase, to satisfy sadistic
tendencies.
A person can, perhaps, get
over beatings, or even torture. But he cannot ever forget humiliation,
especially when it was done in full view of his family, friends, colleagues
and all people around the world. How many new terrorists were born at
that moment?
On that day I happened to
visit friends in a Palestinian village in the West Bank. We - my hosts
and I - were riveted to the TV screen (mainly Aljazeera). When these
pictures appeared, I could not look them in the eye for shame.
THE ISRAELI media had a ball.
Not just a ball, they went gaga for sheer joy. They contributed their
special part to the loathsome event and stood to attention behind the
government. Like a flock of parrots, unanimously repeating the mendacious
official version.
It was a festival of brain-washing.
The "Murderers of Ze'evi" have been captured! It was our national
duty! We could not rest until they fell into our hands, dead or alive!
These three words - "Murderers
of Ze'evi" - turned into a mantra. They were repeated endlessly
on radio and television, and appeared in the printed newspapers (all
of them!) and the speeches of the politicians (all of them!). That's
how it is: Israelis are "murdered", Palestinians are "eliminated".
Why, for Gods sake? Rehavam
Zee'vi, a cabinet minister at the time, preached day and night about
"transfer" - the euphemism for driving the Palestinians out
of Palestine. Compared to him, Jean-Marie le Pen in France and Joerg
Haider in Austria are bleeding-heart liberals. His targeted killing
is no different from the targeted killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin and
scores of other Palestinian leaders, including Abu-Ali Mustafa, the
chief of the Popular Front, who was allowed by Israel to return from
Syria to the Palestinian territories after Oslo.
This is part of the endless
chain of violence: The Israeli army killed Abu-Ali Mustafa. He was succeeded
by Ahmed Sa'adat, who, according to the Israeli security service, ordered
the killing of Rehavam Ze'evi in revenge, and whose capture was the
aim of the Jericho action. And so it goes on.
Let's be clear: I oppose
all murders. Theirs and ours. The murder of Abu-Ali Mustafa and the
murder of Rehavam Ze'evi. But whoever spills the blood of a Palestinian
leader cannot complain about the shedding of the blood of an Israeli
one.
THERE IS still another side
to the affair, which is no less disgusting: the attitude towards the
keeping of agreements.
Sa'adat and his colleagues
were held in Jericho in accordance with an agreement signed by Israel.
On the strength of it, they left the Mukata'a in Ramallah, during the
siege on Yasser Arafat, and entered the Palestinian jail in Jericho.
The US and the UK guaranteed their safety and undertook to monitor their
imprisonment.
What has happened now in
Jericho is a blatant breach of the agreement. The miserable pretexts
invented in Jerusalem, London and Washington are an insult to the intelligence
of a 10-year old.
Israeli governments often
regard the breach of an agreement as a patriotic act if it serves our
purpose. Agreements are binding only on the other side. This is not
only a primitive morality, it is also damaging to our national interests.
Who will sign an agreement with us, knowing that it obligates only him?
How can Israel convincingly demand that the Hamas leaders "accept
all the agreements" signed by the Palestinian Authority?
Many Israelis believe that
the Jericho action was a brilliant exercise. I found it simply loathsome.